Palazzo Madama

This palace near Piazza Navona has served as the seat of the Italian Senate since the unification of the country, and its name commemorates a sixteenth-century Habsburg duchess who once lived there. The Baroque facade, richly ornamented with carved cornices and grotesque masks, dates from a seventeenth-century remodelling of an older building raised over the ruins of ancient baths. Because it functions as a working chamber of parliament, interior access is limited to occasional open days.